Extras and drawbacks
The Creative Zen is full of nice little touches. Unlike the iPod Nano, the Zen has a built-in FM player. It supports voice recording and also has a microSD storage slot, two more features iPods don't have.
The Zen comes with a decent set of software that includes applications to manage Audible audio books and ZenCasts, which are what Creative calls audio and video podcasts. Also included is an application for synchronizing contacts, appointments and to-do items with Outlook and one that installs firmware upgrades. However, the included MediaSource software for managing media on your PC and transferring it to the device is getting long in the tooth and is not particularly intuitive.
Projected battery life is 25 hours of continuous audio playback and five hours for video -- a smidge better than Nano's advertised playback time.
Of course, no device is perfect, and this one has a few flaws. The documentation is skimpy and the Zen comes with a strangely short 5-inch USB cable. Practically speaking, you'll need to get a longer USB cable.
The most maddening problem is related to using the add-in storage slot. In fairness, Creative and other media player vendors have been painted into a corner by Microsoft, which requires devices to be in so-called MTP mode when used in conjunction with online services that use Microsoft's digital rights management scheme.
This means that music and other media stored on the SD card, which uses MSC mode, can't be integrated with your core media collection. To Creative's credit, they made it very easy to switch to MSC mode -- you simply use a top-level menu option. Once in that mode, you can browse and play back the contents of the disk, but that's where the convenience ends.
In particular, Creative extended no advanced media management capabilities to its MSC support. That means, for instance, that a full CD of music appears as a folder and the files play back in alphabetical order, not the order they appear on the album.
Still, the Creative Zen's other capabilities, its small size and excellent video and audio playback quality make it both a solid iPod Nano competitor and a highly attractive gift option this holiday season.